Poll: 41 percent confident in U.S. healthcare

PRINCETON, N.J., June 28 (UPI) -- Forty-one percent of adults say they have a great deal or a lot of confidence in the U.S. medical system, a Gallup Poll indicated.

The telephone survey of 1,004 U.S. adults, conducted June 7-10, in all 50 states, found Americans' confidence in the healthcare system has increased a point since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 but was much higher than the 2007 low point.

However, this confidence in the $2.2 trillion healthcare industry -- the most expensive in the world but ranked in the mid-20s with other developed countries in health outcomes -- has fluctuated from 31 percent to 44 percent since 1993.

Whenever U.S. healthcare is debated in Washington and covered extensively in the news, confidence in the system has dropped. Americans' confidence in the medical system peaked at 44 percent in 2003 and 2004 when it was not under public debate, but dropped to 34 percent in 1993 and 31 percent in 2007, the year confidence in most U.S. institutions dropped, Gallup officials said.

Republicans have typically shown greater confidence in the medical system than independents or Democrats -- 49 percent of Republicans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the medical system, compared with 44 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents.

The survey has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.